Lost Peru City Opens Up With Cable-Car Tours

There is a lost city in Peru, hidden ten thousand feet up in the sky near the Andes. Known as the ‘second Machu’, it has been a remote location that has always been difficult to travel to, but the good news is that has all now changed.

Located in the region of Amazonas, north of Peru, the Kuelap was an ancient fortress created sometime within the sixth and sixteenth century. The Chachapoyas culture built the fortress on a ridge, which offers a breathtaking view of the Utcubamba Valley.

The Chachapoyas have been referred to in the past as the ‘Warriors of the Clouds’ and developed this area as South America’s largest stone structure, with about 450 homes, donned with rhomboid and zig-zag friezes as well as thatched roofs. The walls stand 60 feet and have been pre-dated by the Machu Picchu from some 800 years.

Still, for about three centuries now, Kuelap was a cloud forest, until it was found 1843, only for it to be declared, in 2003, as a cultural heritage site.

The good news is, its beauty no longer remains lost to visitors and tourists. A cable-car tour, costing approximately $18 million, has been created to help increase visitation to this area. Now it only takes about 20 minutes to see Kuelap, in the past it took a 5.5-mile hike (that ranged four hours in time) or a 90-minute drive.

This is a first for Peru, and to launch the exciting tourist attraction the 2.5-mile cable car was officially sanctioned by Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Peru’s President.

Think you might be interested? Rainbow Tours, specializing in Latin America tourism, has announced a Peru and Beach Holiday, which is 13 days long and will take you to Kuelap, as well as the Chan adobe city, the Valle de Moche’s Sun, as well as the Moon Temples, Mancora, and Peru’s coastal shores.

Still, you may want to start saving up. The price tag around this vacay starts at about $4,480 US each person, which includes flight.